US-based venture capital firm University Ventures has raised $136m for its second fund, in which media group Bertelsmann is the anchor investor, according to a regulatory filing on Saturday.
Previous filings show University Ventures obtained $175m out of a targeted $350m for its second fund in 2013, before increasing the amount to $188m in April 2014. It is not yet clear why the amount raised and the target have been reduced to $136m.
Global Corporate Venturing has reached out to University Ventures to clarify the change in figures and will update as appropriate.
University Ventures Fund II is expected to widen the firm’s scope and include areas such as medical education. Bertelsmann revealed in March 2014, when the target was still $350m, that it had agreed to provide half of the second fund’s total cash.
Bertelsmann was previously the anchor investor in the $105m University Ventures Fund I, launched in 2011. University of Texas Investment Management Company (Utimco), the investment vehicle of University of Texas system, was also a limited partner for Fund I.
For its first fund, University Ventures partnered with providers in the US and Europe to develop higher education programmes with a particular focus on social and economic needs.